London, you left me undone,
pulled me apart,
concrete teeth on tarmac tongue;
you chewed me up and left me dripping,
gripping my keys in my pocketed fist,
tripping over my own feet into a stranger’s meal deal.
This is the real deal.
Oh yes, I’ve made it.
I’ve made payments for these pavements,
you’ve got my desperation on direct debit.
Please mind the gap between your pain and the landlord.
Hi, my name’s Martha and I’m an Oxford University Reject.
I hope you read the first sentence of this post in a proud, ‘owning it’ voice and not a breathy, defeated one, because that is certainly the spirit in which it was intended. Maybe I should release an audio book to prevent any further confusion…
It’s taken me three years to move from whiney, deflated Oxford reject to strong independent reject who don’t need no Oxford! That’s your cue to burst into spontaneous applause – gosh I’m really having to spell things out for you today.
If you didn’t read the title of this post in an appropriately atrocious Dick van Dyke cockney accent, go back, start again and do it properly.
As you may or may not know, in September, I left home to move to London. To read my initial and hilarious thoughts about this change, check out my post ‘Why things are different now I live in London’ by clicking here.
Now my first year at university is over, I feel, in the spirit of poignancy, I can look back in a wise and philosophical manner as I stroke my imaginary beard, pondering over this year’s ups and downs, its twists and turns and all the nice snacks I’ve had the pleasure of chomping upon. Those Doritos I had back in March really were delicious…
London is a city like no other. On one hand, it’s formidable in ways I can hardly comprehend and yet on a small-scale everyone just seems as incapable as I am. I can see people sat on the underground become visibly anxious as their stop approaches and they must find safe passage through the web of limbs and briefcases between them and the carriage doors. Accompanied by multiple bumpings into other commuters and muttered apologies, they are finally through the doors, on the platform and free to be awkward in some other place.
I’m just fascinated how London as a city is this terrifying, sprawling monster, when for the most part it’s made up of socially anxious, un-coordinated serial apologisers.
I have a love-hate relationship with London which mainly consists of me chasing London around screaming “COME BACK HERE SO I CAN LOVE YOU!” at the top of my lungs, while London smokes a cigarette, takes a sip of soy latte and nonchalantly cycles away from me on its über-cool fixed-gear bicycle.
I go through phases of feeling like a true Londoner. These moments include:
Popped collar. Rock solid. She walks in sunlight.
Back at the flat and she’s throwing away unopened letters that look like they could be bills. She longs for the ocean. She winces while she plucks her eyebrows. She paints all of her nails and then picks the polish off again, deciding ‘salmon dream’ isn’t her colour. The room feels different when he’s not here. She thinks about the last time they spoke.
Pluck-pick-pluck-pick.
“Can you just give me one second to get my thoughts together without jumping down my throat the entire time?”
Just-one-second-slam.
She remembers tears welling up in her eyes as the door slammed shut.
Slam-slam-roll-crash.
She splashes her face with cold water, freshens her lipstick and leaves.
Splash-fresh-lip-leave.
Men roll down their tinted windows at the traffic lights. She pulls her denim jacket tighter around her porcelain shoulders. The music oozes from her headphones and drips down her arms and her chest, swallowing their catcalls whole. In an instant, their sweaty kisses are engulfed, leaving her alone with thoughts of music and moonlight.
Finally she’s drumming. She is all hair and drums. And they’ve noticed her, they’re in awe of her. They’re recording her on their phones and not paying the singer any mind. A crowd has gathered now, she catches glimpses of them through tresses of bleach blonde hair. Coins and notes drop into the open guitar case.
It’s like they’ve never seen a drummer girl before.
BOO!
Did I scare you? I bet I did. I haven’t been around for so long, you probably thought I was some ghost of Internet trends gone by; tossed in the trash heap along with Myspace, keyboard cat and common decency.
Well, I’m sorry to say you can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m like a urinary tract infection – I keep on coming back.
A lot has changed since we last spoke. I now speak Italian, live on a narrow boat and am struggling with an aggressive addiction to grapes*.
(*only one of these is true – you decide which)
The biggest change in my life is that I have left home and now live in London. The big smoke, the rotten apple, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of…I think you get the gist.
I know what you’re thinking: “But, Martha! With your bounding whimsy and lack of co-ordination, you are surely too frail for city-life! I can only see this going badly for you!”
Alright, that’s enough! You sound just like my yoga teacher, my cat and my dentist. And although I don’t appreciate your unanimous and relentless underestimation of my capacity to be a functioning human being…Alas, you are right. I overheat on the tube, I drop my bags on the floor when I manoeuvre around the bus and I am permanently in the way…of everyone…all the time.
But I don’t care. Because London puts me through my paces and I’d rather be sweating, apologising and picking up my tampons from the floor of the no. 23 than doing anything else in the world right now.
So here are the things that have changed in my life since I moved to London:
Writing, rewriting, writing etc. 